


The Things We Do For Each Other

by divingforstones



Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Grief/Mourning, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-28
Updated: 2014-03-28
Packaged: 2018-01-17 08:18:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1380598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/divingforstones/pseuds/divingforstones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It’s been doing things to James, despite his carefully constructed defences. It’s already making him think of Robbie as Robbie, just in his own head. Not Lewis, but <i>Robbie.</i> Which is either a harmlessly pleasurable indulgence or a really bad idea. Probably both simultaneously."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Things We Do For Each Other

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks: to wendymr for very thorough and extremely helpful beta-reading. This has been tinkered with since so any errors are of my own making.
> 
> Starts not long after The Gift of Promise. So not canon-compliant. First section describes emotional neglect for a main character in childhood but nothing graphic.

 Part I—November.

  _No prizes for coming first_

 

Robbie’s been chatting in comfortable fashion as he readies himself to leave the office for the evening. There’s not much hope of tempting his sergeant out for a pint these days. James is dividing his attention between Robbie and a sentence that he’s teasing out. His fingers are moving across the keyboard sporadically but his head stays tilted towards Robbie, the small changes in his expressions still responding to whatever Robbie is saying. Sometimes Robbie wonders if the lad has two brains underneath that blond thatch. It’d explain a lot.

James is working at one of his assignments for this new course on investigative interviewing techniques for victims and witnesses. He’ll be heading off for a week next month for the intensive learning part, but he’s been working for weeks already at the distance learning bit. He seems to be doing rather well. Unsurprisingly.

Back when James had first offhandedly mentioned that he might apply for this, it could have seemed to a casual observer that it didn’t matter too much to him either way.  But Robbie has never been a casual observer where his sergeant is concerned. So he’d asked a throwaway question about the course content and been surprised by the sudden animation that had taken over as James had begun to explain all about this new research and the competing schools of thought. It was that animation that had prompted Robbie to have a quiet word with Innocent. And much as she’d obviously have preferred that James was diligently studying OSPRE, she had seemed to accept this as a positive sign of James’s commitment to the job, if not to progressing up the ranks.

Robbie hadn’t shared with Innocent that he doesn’t think it’s the course content exactly that’s been drawing James. He suspects it’s more the challenge, and the learning for learning’s sake.

He’d never seen James in study mode before this. It’s been fascinating Robbie. He has to make a conscious effort not to let himself break into a grin when he watches his sergeant overtaken by sudden vivacity, any time James feels he has permission to unleash his thoughts on one of his new pet topics. He reckons James thinks Robbie is just interested in the course content. He hopes that’s what James thinks, anyway.

Because whenever Robbie asks a question, James starts gesticulating away, absorbed in what he’s saying, explaining things, unleashing arguments to back up his own opinions, arguments that he’s obviously been having in his own head. And Robbie is finding it’s a sheer pleasure to watch him like that. For some reason that he hasn’t probed at too much in his own head yet, it lifts Robbie’s spirits disproportionately to see James so lively and engaged. Possibly too much. Because Robbie’s found himself these past few weeks actually spending time thinking up slightly contentious questions to drop into quiet moments during their daily grind _._

He gives the top of James’s head an affectionate look now. “Try not to burn the midnight oil. No prizes for coming first, you know,” he jokes, as he shrugs into his jacket. James’s hands come to an abrupt halt on the keyboard. “What, lad?” Robbie is astonished.

James doesn’t look at him. He’s gone slightly pale. But he frowns at the screen as if immersed. After a moment his fingers resume typing, as if Robbie had never spoken.

Robbie stares at him a moment. Something is very wrong here. He reaches out and clamps a hand across the screen. James stops typing. He still doesn’t look up, though. But you can’t push James. You never could. “Come on then,” Robbie says. “Pub. Don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. But let’s get you out of here, all right?”

He’s not leaving him here after that.

***

It takes until after their second pint. So Robbie is glad of the impulse that had made him drive to James’s, leave his car there and suggest a walk to his sergeant’s local. That way he can see him home as well. It’ll be a taxi for him after that, but James will pick him up in the morning.

James doesn’t talk easily. Robbie’s still taken aback he’s going to talk at all. But he feels he is. Throughout the evening, the silences have been lengthening—he thinks James has no idea how long they’ve become. And they’re not quite the normal, comfortable silences that usually settle between them. Robbie has the same feeling he has when someone he’s interviewing is about to let go and he just needs to wait them out. Not that he’s been asking any questions here. He’s just been making conversation. Just waiting.

James has disappeared outside while Robbie got them in. Robbie can see through the bevelled window the distorted, shadowed but always unmistakeable form of his sergeant leaning against the wall. When he comes back in, he’s obviously finally reached a resolution sometime during his nicotine fix. So Robbie is glad of the impulse that had made him pick two glasses of something harder this time. He sees James take that in with a nod.

James hunches over the table a bit, staring at the amber liquid in his glass. He gives a sigh. “It was a very traditional sort of school I went to,” he starts. “Form positions, these twice-yearly speech days with prize givings, the lot.” He casts a glance up at Robbie under his lashes but Robbie is acutely aware that this is no time for jokes. He says nothing, just hopes he looks encouraging.

“And my father showed up at the first prize giving. I mean, that’s what they were for—for the families to visit, big occasions, showcase the school a bit, I suppose—and I’d mentioned it in the weekly letters we were expected  to write—but on holidays, you see, it was fairly obvious I was an inconvenience, showing up, in the way. He worked long hours at his job, whichever job, he kept moving around after we’d lost the cottage at Crevecoeur— _anyway,_ it puzzled me. Why he started coming to these prize givings.”

Robbie frowns at him, incredulous. But James isn’t looking at him. He’s addressing his words out the window, into the dark of the street. And he’s perfectly sincere. “It turned out he only came when I came top. Overall top of my form. Or some other noteworthy prize. I doubt he even noticed the pattern himself.” But James, of course, had. “He was just—drawn to the reflected glory, I suppose. He was a competitive man. And he’d never actually been drawn to me, as me.”

It is a matter-of-fact statement, delivered casually, as something that James had obviously come to terms with a long time ago. The combination of the casual tone and what James is actually saying, here, the volumes it speaks about his early life, makes Robbie feel a bit breathless.

But James is continuing, still matter-of-fact, unaware of the effect his words are having on Robbie.  He’s looking at Robbie now, but he doesn’t seem to be quite seeing him, all the same.  “And, finally, I’d been ill one term—rotten headaches. Bloody matron kept searching for a relative of mine to talk to. Thought I was being _obstructive as usual._ But he wasn’t actually there. I’d thought he’d have come, you see, because it wasn’t my fault I wasn’t top that time. But it wasn’t a punishment, his not coming. He just wasn’t interested in making the effort to come if it wasn’t worth his while. I understood it then. It was a relief in one way, to finally make sense of it.”

 _Sense?_ Robbie opens his mouth to protest at the sheer bloody wrongness of all this madness—God, it’s hard to know where to start—and closes it again helplessly. Best let him get it off his chest. He’s reasoned it all out so long ago, but has he ever actually talked about it? And it’s not going to help James to spout platitudes at him that of course his dad loved him, for him. Robbie’s seen enough over the years to know that doesn’t always apply. This is James’s truth, which he lives with, and the least Robbie can do is endure hearing it and not start protesting that it’s not true. Just because he—really wishes it wasn’t.

It’s one thing missing your son’s school sports day, though, because you have a demanding inspector and your schedule is not your own at work, and Mark being understandably angry. This is quite another. And James hadn’t been angry, Robbie would bet. James wouldn’t have been secure enough to be angry. James, with his long-accustomed habit of low expectations, would have been quite resigned. But perhaps a bit hopeful at the beginning, all the same. Robbie hadn’t missed that part about him mentioning those accursed prize givings in his weekly letter.

James is suddenly more animated. “But, I mean, I wasn’t trying to win prizes for _him._ Not once I worked it out. I just—liked the challenge of it. I liked the learning. Not the trying to come top. I liked all the richness of it, everything we did. I liked the languages and poetry and the classics and literature most of all.”

“Course you did, lad,” Robbie says softly. James looks relieved to have gotten that across. Robbie watches him for a moment as James picks up his glass and studies the light playing through the liquid. He seems a bit too distracted to drink it still. Getting caught up in those long-supressed feelings from the past. “Your—mam?” Robbie questions tenatively. The subject has been so comprehensively closed down over the years that he thinks he’d have needed a couple of pints inside him to ask.

“She’d died.” It drops flatly into the conversation as James puts the glass down on the table with a very definite movement. Close of topic. Well, it’s not exactly a shock as such. Robbie’d sort of guessed as much.  Just hadn’t known for sure James was really quite so young when it happened. By the time he went away to school at twelve, so? Only twelve?

“I was a strange child, I’m sure.” James is still trying to explain. Why his father wasn’t—interested. As if the problem had somehow been James and not the sheer inadequacies or self-absorption of his father. “He found me a bit of a know-it-all. And then the same thing that made me strange to him was making me appealing, now that it was what you won plaudits for. Masters shaking his hand and saying how well read I was for a boy my age—and it was nothing to do with him, nothing. It had been all my mother’s stuff, the books she’d left—” He stops, gazing out the window again.

And then suddenly Robbie is experiencing a  vivid, thoroughly unwelcome recollection. From the Suskin case. This cleverness—it had made James stand out and feel different all his life and Robbie—on that case, Robbie had ribbed him for it. Repeatedly.

 _Well, it’s not normal, is it, being that clever?_ Robbie had said to James back then, arguing that Zoe Suskin could be a suspect. Worse. Robbie had actually had a go. When James was getting caught up in the ancient High Kings of Ireland and Milo Woodeson’s essay. _Because just sometimes, James, do you never think you could be too clever for your own good?_ And James had looked a bit bothered. And by the end of that conversation, a bit resigned. He must have been adding Robbie to the list of people who didn’t get it, didn’t accept that this was the way he was. Oh, bloody hell. Robbie hadn’t known. He somehow can’t stand the thought that James had doubted, even for that moment, what Robbie thinks of him. James, with all his cleverness that is such an inseparable part of him and all the things that he is besides in Robbie’s eyes. Surely he’d know how Robbie sees him? Wouldn’t he?

James rouses himself now to reassure Robbie, obviously misinterpreting the rather stricken look that must be on Robbie’s face. “I mean, he wasn’t cruel, my father, just never really interested.”

 _And you reckon that’s not cruel?_ Robbie wonders, not reassured in the slightest. But James is casting his gaze about a bit now, looking lost. Probably from the utterly unaccustomed sensation of actually opening up and stirring all this up. So Robbie tries to reach past his own guilt to respond to that, in the gently teasing way that often suits James best. The way that calms him down and reengages him in the present when he’s starting to get taken by his own demons.

“Ah, you’re not that clever, lad, really, not all the time,” he offers. “Sometimes you can be a right stupid bugger, like.” James turns his gaze to him, his eyes beginning to focus properly on Robbie’s in a more familiar way, with a slight hope in them _._ “We could keep a list?" Robbie suggests. “Of all the stupid things you do. Just so you know it definitely can’t be your brains I’m keeping you around for.” He gets a small twitch of one side of James’s lips in response. “You probably keep a mental tally of my cock-ups already, don’t you, sergeant?” The arch of James’s eyebrows suggests there may be something in that.

It emboldens Robbie to try one last question. “And where is he now, your dad?” he asks.

He receives only a shrug in reply. It could mean _he’s nowhere; he’s dead_ or _I don’t know_ or _I’m not saying_ or simply _I don’t care._ It definitely means that Robbie has had all the information he’s getting for one evening.

Shame, really. Robbie really quite wants to track the bastard down and murder him.

 

 

 Part II—December Nineteenth.

  _Reaching across the miles_.

 

It has been oppressively grey for days, the whole weight of the close, grey, rain-sodden sky bearing down on Robbie this morning, as he stood in the open, stiff fingers going numb around the handle of a fairly useless umbrella. The wind had jabbed and snapped at, and broken two more of the ribs until he’d lowered it in an effort to stop being distracted.

There are times he can almost feel her here, gets lost talking to her so his memories of her just seem to sort up summon up the feeling of her. His Val. Then there are times like today when all he feels is bleak and cold and he can’t get hold of her at all. It will be easier once today is over. The memories that today holds, the bits he can remember of that journey up to a London hospital, of telling his children—well, it’s better when it’s over.

Just a lot of hours to get through first, aren’t there?

He rams his useless umbrella into a bin on the way back to the car. You saw more useless umbrellas jammed in the bin at the cemetery than anywhere else, seemed to him. Like people had just given up.

It’s still early as he makes his way towards his office. From the corridor he can hear his desk phone is already ringing, and he makes an effort to quicken his step. There’ll be no-one there to answer it, after all. That week-long intensive learning course of James’s.

 _I shouldn’t be here_. The thought comes unbidden into Robbie’s mind as he reaches for the receiver. He’ll be of no use today, regardless of whether this is case-related or part of the mind-numbing bureaucracy that comes every day with his job but suddenly today seems unbearable. He can’t quite summon up the energy to go into work mode. It doesn’t seem to matter much somehow.

“Lewis,” he says gruffly.                                                                                                                                                     

“Morning, sir,” comes a warm voice through the receiver. Into Robbie’s ear. He's taken by surprise. “You all right down there? Weather’s foul here. Went out for a few minutes just now before the start of the session and it’s blowing a right freezing gale.”

It’s James. Not actually ringing with a weather report either. Whatever it may seem on face value. “You just caught me, lad,” he says, a bit confused for a moment at so suddenly being connected to James, pulled back out of himself.

“I know." James’s words are very causal but his voice is somehow comforting. “Called a bit earlier, actually. Didn’t want to call the mobile. Didn’t want to disturb you.” He knew Robbie would have been visiting the cemetery before work.

“Everything all right, James?” It’s a daft question. He knows exactly why his sergeant is calling this particular morning. But he can’t think of anything else to say.

“Yeah,” comes that reassuring voice. “Well, it’s a bit intense, lot of work in the evenings, be glad enough when it’s over now.” There’s a long pause. “Sir? It’s just—I mean—I have my mobile on even when I’m in the seminars, sir. On silent. But I always know when it vibrates.”

Robbie could make a dry comment about not doubting that. About James and his surgical attachment to his phone. But he’s not stupid. Might be having some trouble concentrating today, but he knows his sergeant.

“Aye,” he says instead. “‘’S’all right.  Get on in to that seminar now. Before they dock you some of your marks for punctuality.”

Once he’s replaced the receiver, the office seems oppressively quiet. Quieter even than it has been the past couple of days with the unusually neat desk opposite. It’s almost enough to make you pick up the receiver again and call that vibrating mobile and just say “James?”

But what would you say after that?

It’s a quiet and interminable morning. It’s just not worth heading out into that weather again at lunch. Or even to the canteen with its bloody cheery Christmas decorations. Easier to stay here and continue going at the pointless paperwork.

It tends to be a bit of a blur this day, in retrospect, but when it’s spent in work, and they don’t have the distraction of an active case, he has the vague impression of an unquestioning silence in the office, phones only ringing once before someone rapidly starts to deal with interruptions, and gentle prompts when there’s anything scheduled to get to. He remembers coffee appearing on his desk and: _thought you could do with a proper caffeine fix before your meeting with Innocent in a bit, sir, keep you awake_. _She’ll probably throw a load of stats at you, you know_. Why’d they have to send his sergeant all the way to flaming Glasgow anyway? What’s wrong with somewhere a bit—closer?

It’s quite a shock when he looks up and finds Gurdip has materialised in front of his desk. He’s just standing, waiting patiently for Robbie’s attention. Both hands full. Robbie blinks at him. “James said to drop you in lunch on Wednesday, sir. Early. So you knew you didn’t have to go out for it. Something hot. He was quite specific,” says Gurdip, with a small private grin, obviously remembering the specificity of James’s instructions. Robbie keeps on staring at him. “He knew you’d have a hectic day scheduled today, did he, sir?” asks Gurdip. “Oh—no,” he says hastily, as Robbie feels for his wallet, “he paid for mine too, actually. Told him there was no need but—” Gurdip shrugs cheerfully “— I’ll stick his change in his in-tray, sir,” and then he’s gone.

Robbie finds himself shaking his head the way that he often finds himself shaking his head when James does something that’s just very particularly James. He’s not hungry in the slightest, but he has a go at both the soup and the panini. Almost as if there’s a slightly fretful sergeant sitting at the desk across from him, casting the odd assessing glance to see if he’s co-operating. And for the little he eats, the food disproportionately warms him.

***

The day is so dull that it’s hard to tell if it’s gathering darkness, or just the all-pervading grey rainclouds, making the office so dim as the afternoon wears on. Maybe Robbie should’ve gone up to Manchester after all. But he’d taken a chunk of time when his grandson had so recently arrived. He’d talked to Lyn early this morning and she’d been distressed. Some years are just worse than others, no rhyme or reason to it. But this year she has a new-born to contend with and all the missing her mam that probably goes with that. At least she’d be well occupied today. And this evening she won’t be by herself. He’s a trustworthy bloke, Robbie’s son-in-law, you can rely on him to be there at times like this.

Mark had surprised him by ringing last night. But late last night for Robbie was the morning of the nineteenth in Australia. He hopes the boy understood he was glad to hear from him. Hopes he had sounded as all right as he could be to both his kids.

He’s wrestling with a budget report that is being confusingly obtuse when a cardboard cup is nudged into his field of vision. There’s the very welcome aroma of coffee. He looks up, startled. For a moment he thinks James has left cappuccino instructions while he’s at it. But it’s Laura and she wouldn’t need any reminders. She’s holding her own matching cup in her other hand.  Looking a bit windswept, for Laura. She leans back against James’s desk while she sips at hers. “Must be fairly quiet in here,” she says eventually, indicating the empty desk chair with a nod, “this week?”

“Yeah.” Not being rostered on the active duty rota with James away. No distractions. No amusing asides or frustrated mutterings or just the accustomed reassurance of James’s compatible presence, making the paperwork that bit more bearable. Too much time to think as today slowly, unavoidably, approached.

Laura seems to understand that he’s grateful for the company but not up for conversation. He hopes she understands that anyway. Must do, because— “If you want a drink later, Robbie—a quiet one?”

“No.” He tries to come up with something that will make that sound less abrupt. “Thanks,” he adds.

She grimaces at him.

He looks back at her helplessly. “Think I’ll just go for an early night,” he attempts. He can see that she’s not fooled.

“If you change your mind…” she says gently, slipping off James’s desk.

“Yeah. Thanks,” he adds again. There’s only a couple of hours now until hometime.

***

It’s just as he pulls up outside his flat that it really hits him.

The distraction of the drive has been keeping other thoughts at bay, but the moment he pulls up the handbrake, it suddenly overwhelms him. He fumbles for his mobile almost in a panic, not even quite sure who he’s going to call. And it’s not there. He can picture it, though, lying on his desk.

Does he even have their numbers written down anymore? Did he just put them straight into his phone? Bloody things.

 _“If you change your mind…”_ and “ _I have my mobile on even when I’m in the seminars, sir,”_ People have been reaching out to him today—with coffee and descriptions of the silent mode on their phones. He has a choice to make here.

He should turn around and go back to the office and grab his phone. Then he should call James back and just say—something—to him. Just something. Just give in and let James take it from there, maybe. And then he should see if Laura wants to go for that drink. But—he tells himself it’s just that it’s too much hassle to head back into the rush hour traffic. It’s foul weather still. But in reality, as the panic subsides, he knows he probably isn’t going to make either of those calls. All he feels is weary.

So he lets himself into his flat. He flicks on first the light in the hallway and then the one in the living area as he starts to sort through his small sheaf of post.

And there’s a blond head on his sofa. There’s an unmistakeable lanky form on it too, curled on its side. It stirs and sits upright, looking a bit dazed in the sudden artificial light. James rubs his eyes. “Think I dozed off,” he mutters. “Oh, sorry, sir, didn’t want to startle you, meant to turn the lights on.”

Robbie stands and stares at him. “You weren’t here today,” he says, after a bit.

James, waking up properly now, gives him a small smile. “No, I wasn’t,” he says softly. “But I am now.”

***

Robbie heads into his bedroom to shed his jacket and pull a jumper on. He takes a moment to just sit on the side of his bed, hearing the familiar sounds of James making tea in his kitchen. He’s still a bit dazed by this. It feels a bit unreal. When he gets back in, it’s obviously been more than a moment he took, because there’s two full mugs on the coffee table and James is back on Robbie’s couch, in his accustomed position, right at one end. It’s a welcome invitation. Robbie drops right down beside him in relief.

James’s keys lie on the coffee table too, where he must have dropped them before he’d curled up on the couch earlier. Christ, that’s a long days driving. Lad must be shattered. Then Robbie realises that the key to his flat has gone to Scotland and back, dangling from the ignition in James’s car, on James’s key ring. That Robbie's key lives there now. Well, that’s not a bad idea, Robbie thinks. Not much point having James’s spare key sitting in Robbie’s kitchen drawer, is there? Wouldn’t ever want any delay if anything happened and he needed to get into his sergeant’s flat.

The sudden reversal of the evening he’d foreseen, the turnaround, is still so startling that he just sits for a while in silence beside James’s warmth. James doesn’t seem to mind the quiet. He never does. So it’s a while before it suddenly hits Robbie.

“Christ, James. Your course—it’s not over yet. You’ve two more days. And today—you’ve missed all today—you’ve gone and left it early—Innocent…” _She’ll be absolutely livid._

“Well—yeah. No need for her to know, is there? I thought I might just go in tomorrow and sit there at my desk, catch up with my inbox, and just act as if I didn’t understand, so to speak: Course? What course, ma’am? Oh _that,_ that finished yesterday, ma’am.”

The thought of James doing that is momentarily sort of funny. He can just picture his sergeant frowning up at Innocent, acting all perplexed at her confusion. He feels something approaching a genuine grin on his own face for the first time in days. It won’t actually work, though. Does James have the slightest idea how much this course will have cost the department?

But the levity has gone out of James’s voice by the time he speaks again.  He sounds very tentative. “No, on the way here I was thinking—and I thought I could tell her—it was a family emergency?”

“It’s not, though,” Robbie says, still agitated. And then he feels the slight stiffening of the long form beside him and he belatedly registers the tone. What James is actually trying to say. “No, lad,” he says hurriedly, “I mean, I’m not an emergency, am I? Didn’t sound that bad on the phone surely?”

“No, sir.” James is recovering.  “I just—I didn’t like to think of you coming home to an empty flat.”

Robbie gazes at him. Damned if he hadn’t somehow figured out what the worst part of Robbie’s whole day would be.

He feels an ache in his shoulders as they begin to relax. He must have been holding himself in a tense position. Dreading this evening. And now it’s—well, James is here and even if Robbie can’t quite get his mind working like it should be still and he’s going to be fairly dire company—well, James is here and it’s James and he won’t mind.

But there’s something disturbing him all the same, something he needs to deal with, now that he’s beginning to find his way back to more solid ground. It’s just—explaining this, it’s—but it’s James. If this betrays how much his gesture, his return right now, has helped, then maybe Robbie owes him that. “Left my phone in work,” he explains rather haltingly.

***

James tilts his head towards Lewis a bit, assessing, trying to work out the source of his discomfort over this. “Well, you’re not on call, are you?” he asks lightly. _There’s no way Innocent would have you called out tonight._ Lewis shakes his head just slightly _,_ still looking distracted, quite discomfited. James feels his way. “And you talked to—” He receives a short nod. _And I bet you tried to protect your children from your own distress._ “So anyone who might need you tonight will call your landline, wouldn’t they?” _You’ll want to know they could still reach you again if they did want to._

There seems to be something else, though. Lewis is flushing now. He has one hand up at the back of his neck, a sure tell of embarrassment. “I think Laura’s worrying I’m drinking alone in an empty flat,” he says with obvious difficulty, “drinking too much, like.”

 _Oh. She probably is_ , James realises. There had been a text from her this afternoon, just as he had been climbing back into his car at the end of his last brief service station stop. _Not great_ was all that it had said. The answer to the unasked question that had been in his head all day.

James can’t really explain to himself how this happened, his sudden compelling impulse to just come back. He’d heard Lewis's voice this morning and could suddenly picture him so sharply that he simply couldn’t take the thought of him returning in the evening to darkness and emptiness and more forcible reminders of his loss.

“I’ll text her for you,” he offers gently now. He’d meant to reply earlier, as soon as he got here. “My horror of a sergeant has inveigled his way into my flat,” he says aloud, starting to type.

“ _No_.” It comes out quite sharply as Lewis reaches for his arm to stop him. There’s a slight tremor in his hand that doesn’t belong there. And the hand feels quite cold, despite the certain warmth of the flat, through the thin material of James’s shirt sleeve. Lewis takes an audible breath and starts again. “You’ve not inveigled yourself. You may be unexpected but you’re no less the welcome for that. And you’re not a horror.” His voice drops further and the last bit comes out barely audible. “You’re a blessing, that’s what you are, lad.”

There’s a long pause. James leans back a little further into the couch, trying to convey that he’s not going anywhere. “Sorry, sir,” he says softly. _Not the time for sarcasm,_ he reminds himself. Lewis seems somehow unable to take it just now. When he eventually drops that cool hand, James starts to type a much briefer message.

 _Am back_  is all he texts. That will tell her exactly. They don’t need many words to communicate at times, he and Dr Hobson. Not when they’re united in a common cause.

Lewis does seem to be relaxing a bit more now. James really hadn’t much liked the look of him when he first saw him. There’s not much else James can do but be here now.  Stay quiet with him and provide a bit of distraction when it might seem welcome. The only other thing he can really think to offer is a semblance of normality.

“You hungry, sir?” he asks and then, before Lewis can reply, he thinks the better of that and hurriedly adds, “I mean, I’m starving, service station food, you know, not the best, mind if I order us something? Might just turn up your heating as well, while I’m up, chilly this evening, isn’t it?” James rises to root for the takeaway menus in the top kitchen drawer. Then he stops where he is, because Lewis is staring up at him.

***

James is meant to get a qualification, a certificate at the end of this course. How had Robbie failed to remember that when he saw him here? He has an exam at the end and— “Your course,” Robbie says, startled, “your qualification, the certificate—” James’s expression changes, taken by surprise, rather rueful now, not quite meeting Robbie’s eyes. “You should go back up in the morning for the last day and a half? Fly back up? You could go online now, book something…”

“There wouldn’t be much point.” James flushes slightly, his prelude to confessing something. “Well, the main bit of the exam, the practical bit, that was today, really.”

_“James."_

“It’s okay, sir, it is,” James rushes in to soothe. “All those assignments, remember? And we had one exam already this week. I’ve accumulated credit. I mean, it wasn’t rocket science. I was headed for a distinction.” Of course he was. “So even with missing the final test, there’s probably enough done altogether for me to pass.” James is smiling down at him, kindly. “That’s all the department needs me to have. That and the actual knowledge and I’ve got that now. Don’t worry, sir, honestly, forget it.”

Robbie looks at James, standing there, all warmth and comfort. Forget it, he says? Robbie’s going to lift himself enough to do a few things tonight, in a rough sort of attempt to let the lad know how much his gesture has helped.

He’ll eat something, to please him. He’s not in the least bit fooled by the _I’m-starving_ routine from James. He’ll pace himself with a couple of beers too before he allows himself just the one glass of the harder stuff. The worst of the urge for that oblivion has passed. He’ll clear the spare room bed in a bit from whatever detritus he’s chucked on it and make it up properly. Lad’s had a long day driving. He’ll make an attempt to squabble with him about what to watch, to reassure him, despite not giving a toss, and let James think he’s let Robbie win.

It’s not even the having him here, warm as that’s beginning to make him feel, it’s the gesture. What James was willing to do for him without a second thought. Nothing ever makes the grief of today any less, but James has taken the edge off that feeling of hopelessness, of endings and emptiness. It’s made him feel that making an effort is the right thing to do after all. And that it’s actually possible to do that.

So the one thing he sure as hell won’t do is forget it.

***

There’s an undeniable feeling of trepidation gnawing at James as they make their way towards their office the next morning. He’d managed to distract himself from it fairly successfully on yesterday’s drive but this morning it’s returned with interest. He’s not looking forward to letting his Chief Superintendent know he’s back. Unless she knows already, of course.  That would be fairly typical. But, still, he’s not in the least bit sorry.

He’d ended up staying the night in Lewis’s flat. Very handy having a suitcase with him. He’d been awake early enough to make breakfast too, which, he was relieved to see, Lewis had eaten more of than his obviously token effort at last night’s takeaway.

James precedes him into their office but comes to an involuntary halt a few feet inside the room when he catches sight of the memo on his desk in Innocent’s distinctive handwriting. Easy enough in all its off-putting brevity to read from here: _My Office_.

Then there's a firm hand on his shoulder and an even firmer voice in his ear: “Stay here.” And Lewis heads off, a certain purpose suddenly back in his stride.

God, he really had not meant to put Lewis in this position. His inspector would surely hate to have to explain about yesterday to Innocent. He’s just beginning to get really anxious when Lewis reappears. “’Aye. S’al’right,” is all he says in response to James’s look. Getting particularly Geordie in a way that told James that he might be a bit stirred up after all, despite the studied casualness.

An hour later they’re assigned a callout and off they go again. And, rather unbelievably, that’s it. No further retribution for James from on high.

***

Two weeks later the certificate is waiting on James’s desk when they arrive in the office. James rips open the envelope, not expecting much _. Pass_ it says. The barest of bare passes. He gives a rueful chuckle. The final exam had obviously been worth slightly more than he’d supposed. Or marks had been docked for missing it.

Lewis looks over his shoulder and winces comically at the prominently displayed, woefully low, mark. “I don’t think the Chief Super’ll be sticking that one up on the achievements board, sergeant, as an inspiration to us all.” Then he had reached out for the piece of stiff paper. “Can I have that?”

“What? Why?”

“ Just—because. I mean, you don’t need it, do you? So give it here.”

 

 

 Part III-James’s Birthday

  _But they don’t really do presents as such. They do pints_.

 

“Where d’you want to go tonight, then, James? Your choice.”

James looks up from his monitor, struck by the warmth in Robbie’s expression, the expectation in his eyes. “I can’t, he says slowly. “I—the band has this thing tonight. In church—”

He’s a bit annoyed with himself, actually, for not clocking the date when he agreed to this last week. Okay, more than a bit annoyed. He’d been asked if he was free on Thursday week and just hadn’t realised which date that was. And it’s not that a drink after work with Robbie is a rare event. It just feels kind of different when it’s his birthday. Kind of—well, special, he’ll admit, just to himself. And especially this year.

Things have been a bit different recently. If James hadn’t known he was bad at reading those sort of signals, he’d have almost thought—well, it’s ridiculous. Just goes to show you shouldn’t spend too much thinking about something or you’ll start convincing yourself it’s coming true.

It’s just that—Robbie has been looking at him the past few months with a warmth that’s warm even for Robbie. And sometimes James will glance up from his work and find he’s already being looked at himself, with a certain wistfulness in Robbie’s momentarily unguarded expression. It’s been doing things to James, despite his carefully constructed defences. It’s already making him think of Robbie as Robbie, just in his own head. Not Lewis, but _Robbie._ Which is either a harmlessly pleasurable indulgence or a really bad idea. Probably both simultaneously.

And then the arrangements they make to spend time together outside work—they’re still done very casually, those arrangements. But they’re now often made in advance. A Sunday pub lunch very casually suggested on a Friday, that’s James’s personal favourite. And they’re almost all instigated by Robbie. James would suggest things himself, James has all sorts of ideas for things he’d like to do, to share. But he isn’t sure what’s happening here. He just knows it can’t be what it feels like to his foolishly hopeful mind.

Because James knows that he’s rubbish at reading those sort of signals. Maybe it’s as well he’s not getting the chance to indulge himself further this year with the self-deception that a pint on his birthday is somehow especially significant.

He's surprised now to see that Robbie is also looking somewhat put out for a moment, at James turning him down. Then his frown straightens out. James might almost have imagined it. He gives James a small grin. “Play you the medieval madrigal cover of Happy Birthday To You, will they? That should be a hit. Tomorrow evening then, okay?”

It was a nice thought, anyway.

***

When James gets back to his flat, he is very much regretting the impulse that led him to walk this evening. A cold and crisp late spring evening, on the way to the performance, had been one thing. The rapidly developing sleet on the way back is quite another. He huddles against the slight shelter of the door as he fumbles with his key. Then the door he's leaning against starts to swing slowly open of its own accord.

 _“_ Oh _,_ Jesus _Christ!”_

Robbie looks mildly disapproving. “Blasphemy, lad,” he says reproachfully. “And you just back from church.” James stares at him. Robbie’s eyes are full of merriment. “Well, get in here, then, it’s bloody freezing.” And Robbie reaches out to take hold of his arm and pulls him gently through his own front door.

Robbie is the kindest man imaginable. James has a sudden wild fear that half the department will be crouched behind his couch, ready to leap out at him. Thankfully, Robbie knows him a lot better than that. James’s heartrate, which has been getting a lot of exercise in the past sixty seconds, begins to subside to something approaching normality. There are lamps on which he should have spotted from outside. Robbie’s coat is draped over James’s couch. Otherwise, everything in the flat is as James left it. Everything except a flat rectangular wrapped package on his breakfast bar.

But they don’t do presents, as such. They do pints.

James balances his guitar in its case against the couch for now. Then he lets his coat join Robbie’s. Robbie is just waiting. So James heads over to the breakfast bar and hooks one of the stools back, sitting down slowly. He wants to savour this. He can’t take it as slowly as he’d like to because Robbie is also taking a stool, having pulled it around so he’s beside James. He’s saying nothing, though, and his eyes are fixed on James’s face. So James can take it quite slowly.

It could be the size of a coffee table book. He’s intrigued to think what kind of book Robbie would pick out for him. He hopes it’s not just a random book in Latin or Greek. He’d had enough of that throughout his teenage years. People giving him token books just because they were Latin or Greek translations. Regardless of what they were translations of. He hopes it’s not that clumsy.

There’s a box, he realises, once the paper has been carefully removed. A plain, lidded cardboard box. It could still be a book inside, because it’s the sort of box a very fancy journal or notebook would come in. Maybe something for further studies. Not that he’s planning any further studies. But that’d be a nice sort of idea really, that’d be thoughtful.

When he eases the lid off, there’s tissue paper, too, so he folds that back.

 _Oh._ It’s the certificate from his course. It’s a joke. A private joke, so it’s still meaningful really. Silly to invest so much in a present anyway. Just a joke.

“Framed it for you.” Robbie says seriously. He lifts it out of the box himself, and props it up on its stand at an angle, so they can both see it. James waits for the joke.

“Thought you could do with the reminder sometimes. That there’s people now who value you for a lot more than your cleverness. People who love you, for you. Chucking in weeks of work to come back so I wouldn’t come home to an empty flat on the worst night of my year—that wasn’t clever. You daft sod. That’s just pure—you. Wouldn’t have you any other way _.”_

James looks at the certificate in its frame. Then he turns his gaze to study Robbie, to study the intent look on Robbie’s face. He looks like he’s really wanting James to understand. To understand a lot of things from what he’s just said. Things that James wouldn’t normally let himself hope for because being wrong—it would just be too much. But somehow James’s inability to believe he might be cared for, like that, is crumbling. At the look on Robbie’s face.

When he looks back down at the certificate, he’s having trouble focusing on it because the writing has gone a bit blurry. _Pass,_ it still says _Pass._

James feels like he’s won a prize, though. He feels like he’s somehow secured for himself the only prize that he’s ever going to want.


End file.
